When my brother, nephew and I were in Swansea visiting our birthplace, we had dinner with our cousin Nigel at one of the restaurants at the Swansea Marina.

Nigel kindly offered to take us for a drive around Swansea and to the Gower the following day. We of course said yes and he arrived early the next day to pick us up and off we went driving a little around Swansea…Nigel showed us where Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas have a home (Z-J was born in Swansea) and a similar home next door where Catherine had build for her parents; unfortunately both homes are obscured by huge walls and trees so we couldn’t see them. We then continued through to Mumbles, a local township which is the beginning of the Gower Peninsular’s coastline [our mum used to take us here to the beach when we were very young so it was lovely for my brother and nephew to see the area).

We continued our drive to Caswell Bay which is very popular with locals; Nigel told us that there are surfing lessons for those interested. We found this quite amusing as could see no surf and it was summer; certainly no surfing waves like Australia. But a nice beach anyway with a small cafe truck selling hot coffee, tea and chips. Nigel and my brother had a coffee and Braydon had a bucket of hot chips; must say they were very good!

It was a pretty cold day but we were not complaining as the last two weeks in London and Wales the weather had been wonderful; unusually warm for the UK we were told (lucky us). Then we got back into the car and drove to Rhossili. What a beautiful drive; such lovely countryside and great big homes but by this time it was pouring rain so we were happy to arrive at Rossili Downs where we stopped and parked in a car park and ran to the local cafe – Eddy’s.It was definitely too cold and wet to sit outdoors so inside we went and had nice hot cups of tea and coffee and toasted sandwiches – just what we needed. And the views outside from the terrace area are spectacular – across Llangennith Burrows.And beautiful Rhossili Bay – I can only imagine what the views are like on a summer’s day.

.As you can see Rhossili Bay curves along an arc and the beach is approximately five kilometres long backed with sand dunes which unfortunately due to the weather we decided not to walk along.

On our way back to the car, it was still pouring rain but we decided to walk (run) down a lovely small road alongside the bay and stop at the little tourist shop where I bought a tea towel and couple of small items.By now it was time to head back to Swansea for our last night before we head out to Heathrow for Abu Dhabi…a great day especially as we got to have more time with our fabulous cousin Nigel.

Rhossil Bay looks gorgeous, such a shame it was wet as that small terrace would have been perfect to enjoy the views. It’s strange that I’ve travelled widely but never visited South Wales. I’ve spend a couple of weekends in Snowdonia in the north but that was about 20 years ago so perhaps I should take a look one weekend Sue.